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1 of 18December 21, 2004Information Quality Guidelines Staff US EPA - Room M12001300 Pennsylvania Ave., NWWashington, DC 20008quality@epa.gov 
Request for Reconsideration (RFR) regarding Request for Correction (RFC) 136791.
 
Contact name, organization, and contact information.
This letter is styled as a Request for Reconsideration filed by the PerchlorateStudy Group (PSG), an alliance of manufacturers and users of perchlorate established in1993 to fund and perform scientific research to identify and estimate the human healtheffects of perchlorate exposure. PSG is an “affected person” under the language of EPA’sand OMB’s Information Quality Guidelines.
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Please address all communications to:Mr. Michael GirardThe Perchlorate Study Groupc/o AerojetBldg. 20001 Dept. 0330PO Box 13222Sacramento, CA 95813-6000(916) 355-6145 fax 
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Environmental Protection Agency, Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity,Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA/260R-02-008, December 2002 (hereinafter “EPA Information Quality Guidelines”); Office of Management andBudget, Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies; Notice; Republication, 67 Reg. Reg. 8459 (hereinafter“OMB Information Quality Guidelines”). In section 515 of the Treasury and General GovernmentAppropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2001 (Public Law 106–554; H.R. 5658), Congress directed OMB toissue government-wide guidelines implementing information quality language set forth in the 1995Paperwork Reduction Act amendments but heretofore not acted upon by OMB. OMB’s guidelines directedall federal agencies to issue agency-specific implementing guidelines consistent with OMB’s. Thus, theEPA guidelines are derivative from and, in case of conflict or ambiguity, superseded by OMB’s guidelines,which are mandated by law.
 
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History of PSG’s communications with EPA.
The Perchlorate Study Group (PSG) submitted a Request for Correction datedDecember 3, 2003.
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 In our letter we asked EPA to disclose information within itspossession that was critical for reproducing the Agency’s latest analysis of perchloratehealth risks. We noted that a timely reply was essential to enable PSG (and othermembers of the public) to participate effectively and provide informed comment to TheNational Academies’ ad hoc committee reviewing scientific issues concerning thepotential risks of perchlorate ingestion.
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 EPA acknowledged this Request for Correction on December 22, 2003,
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andassigned it RFC #13679. According to EPA’s Information Quality Guidelines, theAgency’s goal is to respond to requests within 90 days of receipt.
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 Having receivedneither an oral nor a written response from EPA within that time period, we submitted asecond letter on March 25, 2004, requesting an immediate response from EPA given thetime-critical nature of the information EPA had not disclosed.
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Assistant Administrator Paul Gilman responded to PSG on March 31, 2004,saying only that EPA needed another 60 days to craft and coordinate reviews of itsresponse.
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 He did not acknowledge PSG’s March 25 letter. This extended period expiredon May 30, 2004. On July 16, 2004, a full six weeks after this self-imposed deadline, Dr.Gilman sent another interim response again stating that the Agency needed another 60days.On August 24, 2004—more than eight months after submitting our initialpetition—PSG submitted a letter styled as a Request for Reconsideration.
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 It was andremains our view that EPA’s dilatory conduct constituted a de facto denial of our Requestfor Correction. According to EPA procedures set forth in its Information QualityGuidelines, a Request for Reconsideration must be referred to an executive panelconsisting of independent assistant administrators, specifically excluding Dr. Gilman andhis successors, whether acting or confirmed.Dr. Gilman responded on behalf of EPA in a letter dated September 15, 2004.This letter purports to be a response to the
PSG December 2003 Request for Correction
, 
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Letter from Michael Girard to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Information Quality GuidelinesStaff, December 3, 2003 (hereinafter “
PSG December 2003 Request for Correction
”). Online athttp://www.epa.gov/quality/informationguidelines/documents/13679.pdf.
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See http://www4.nas.edu/cp.nsf/Projects%20_by%20_PIN/BEST-K-03-05-A?OpenDocument.
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Letter from EPA Information Quality Guidelines Processing Staff to Michael Girard, December 23, 2003.Online at http://www.epa.gov/quality/informationguidelines/documents/13679Ack.pdf.
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EPA Information Quality Guidelines at 31.
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Letter from Michael Girard to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Information Quality GuidelinesStaff, March 25, 2004; http://www.epa.gov/quality/informationguidelines/documents/13679-related.pdf.
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Letter from Assistant Administrator Paul Gilman to Michael Girard, March 31, 2004;http://www.epa.gov/quality/informationguidelines/documents/13679-interim.pdf.
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Letter from Michael Girard to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Information Quality GuidelinesStaff, August 24, 2004 (hereinafter “
PSG August 2004 Request for Reconsideration
”);http://www.epa.gov/quality/informationguidelines/documents/13679-related2.pdf.
 
3 of 18and concludes with language indicating that EPA “will not be treating” PSG’s August2004 letter as a Request for Reconsideration.
Why we disagree with EPA’s decision.
EPA’s response is puzzling if the Agency is genuinely committed to fulfilling itslegal obligations under the Federal Data Quality Act. The Agency’s letter invokesirrelevant facts and presents contorted logic that contradicts both the spirit and letter of the EPA Information Quality Guidelines, and of the OMB Information QualityGuidelines. By waiting more than nine months to deliver this inadequate response EPAalso displays disregard for its own procedures and the Agency’s stated commitments toinformation quality:EPA works every day to expand the public's right to know about and understandtheir environment by providing and facilitating access to a wealth of informationabout public health and local environmental issues and conditions. This enhancescitizen understanding and involvement and provides people with tools to protecttheir families and their communities.
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EPA’s behavior is so inconsistent with the Agency’s stated procedures that the Agency’scommitment to ensuring and enhancing information quality is in question. In thesubsections that follow, we show why EPA’s response to our petition fails the mostelementary scrutiny.a.
 
EPA’s basis for denying our petition is defective on its face.EPA applies our petition to the wrong document; falsely asserts that a disclaimeron the wrong document (but not on the right document) exempts the right document fromhaving to meet applicable information quality standards; and alleges that ongoing peerreview exempts both documents.
 
i.
 
EPA applies our petition to the wrong document.PSG’s petition sought from EPA the disclosure of information critical forreproducing certain original Agency data and analytical results related thereto whichwere disseminated by EPA. We listed four documents that EPA posted on its website onor about November 7, 2003. EPA submitted these documents in October 2003 to TheNational Academies’ ad hoc committee reviewing perchlorate.
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 In section 4 of the
 Disposition of Comments
, EPA summarized new brain morphometry data whosecollection the Agency initiated and sponsored, and offered an interpretation of thesignificance of these data for human health risk assessment. EPA stated that these new 
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EPA Information Quality Guidelines at 5.
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One of these four documents was the subject of the
PSG December 2003 Request for Correction
:Environmental Protection Agency, 2003. Disposition of Comments and Recommendations for Revision to“
Perchlorate Environmental Contamination: Toxicological Review and Risk Characterization (External Review Draft, January 16, 2002)
,” n.d.; http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/cfm/recordisplay.cfm?deid=72117(hereinafter “
2003
 
 Disposition of Comments
”).
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